Bad news for voters in the Buckeye State. Good news for partisan Republicans who prefer to win elections by making it more difficult for voters to vote.

In a 5 to 4 decision, the Rightwingers on the U.S. Supreme Court have now overturned the 6th Circuit's earlier ruling that had blocked Ohio Republicans' attempt to limit early voting by shortening the Early Voting period by one week, eliminating the week where voters could both register and vote on the same day, and by doing away with Sunday voting before the election...

Via SCOTUSBlog comes this Supreme Court order staying the district court's order preventing various cutbacks in early voting (including a cutback from 35 to 28 days, and elimination of one of the two early voting days on a Sunday, a day African-American churches had been using for "Souls to the Polls" voter drives). [It is not clear from earlier orders which Sunday might be eliminated.]

Although the order is "temporary" in the sense that it will be in place pending a ruling on a cert. petition ultimately to be filed by Ohio in the Supreme Court, that won't happen before this election, and so for this election the new shorter voting period is in effect --- and not the old rules put back in place by the district court and affirmed by the 6th Circuit.

That the Court divided 5-4 along liberal conservative lines is no surprise...

See Hasen's coverage for his analysis of what happened here, and why he believes it was a mistake to even challenge the OH Republicans' new restrictions on early voting. Please note: We don't necessarily agree or disagree with his analysis, at this time. But you can read it and decide for yourself.

Our most recent coverage of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeal's decision to uphold the lower District Court decision blocking the GOP voting restrictions is here.

The GOP in Ohio has been attempting to shorten and otherwise restrict Early Voting in the state ever since reforms put in place in 2005 --- in response to the embarrassingly disastrous 2004 Presidential Election there --- worked well enough that most of the problems voter had voting had disappeared by 2008. As we have documented over the years, every time they tried to limit those successful reforms, the courts had blocked them from doing so. They did so again this year, until today's 5 to 4 ruling by the Supremes.

It should also be noted that it is, arguably, because John Kerry failed to keep his promise and fight to make sure every vote was counted in Ohio's contested 2004 election, that the U.S. Supreme Court has now gone so hard to the right, with the addition of Justices Roberts and Alito during George W. Bush's second term.

With today's SCOTUS ruling, and the bad news from the partisans on the 7th Circuit concerning WI Republicans' draconian Photo ID voting restrictions, as our legal analyst Ernie Canning detailed this morning, it seems many of this year's most important elections may be won, or lost, in the courts --- before Election Day even gets here.

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14 years out from Bush vs Gore with the Supreme Court intervening to directly decide an election, and we are still surprised that the only principle that guides them is "What will most benefit the Republican Party?"

Appreciate your thoughts (and, please note, to help folks keep track, I've changed your comment name from "JT" to "Jay T", which is the one you've used here for years and since we have another JT here occassionally, to avoid confusion).

The problem isn't scaling back to 28 days, per se. It's several issues in Ohio, such as getting rid of the entire week when folks could both register and vote on the same day. They won't be able to do that in Ohio anymore if this stands. Also, getting rid of Sunday voting before elections when hundreds of thousands of African Americans have traditional cast their votes on "Souls to the Polls" day.

Now, there are still opportunities to cast a vote in OH, obviously, but the ones that have been taken away here are being taken away only for an attempted partisan advantage, not for any actual compelling government interest. In other words, they are gaming the election rules in order to increase GOP odds of winning elections. They are taking away voting rights in order to do it.

While that is terrible as is, particularly when ALL of the lower courts (District Court and Appeals Court) found it in violation of law and Constitution, but the worst part here is that the U.S. Supreme Court a) entirely ignored the unanimous findings of the lower court judges and b) most important of all, defied its own precedents for such cases.

That latter concern is the worst of all, because it signals a break from precedent that is likely to be employed by the Court in dealing with other, more sweeping voter suppression cases, such as the Photo ID voting restrictions in WI, TX and NC, etc. As well as other restrictions on Early Voting and Same Day Registration in places like NC, and elsewhere, where the signal to the GOP is now: "Restrict whatever you like to win elections! We'll back you up at the U.S. Supreme Court, no matter what!"

Hope that better explains why this is so troubling. I had to get to the TV studio to do Thom Hartmann yesterday, so didn't have time to go into more detail, like the above.